Hardness and bevels

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MagenDavid

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Nov 2, 2008
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I was considering lowering the angle on my Victorinox chef's when I got to thinking. I can't imagine the steel being above 56 HRC. Is that hard enough to hold a 24 degree inclusive bevel?
Does anyone have any general guide to how steep a bevel can be for a given Rockwell hardness?
 
Yes, I know the general guide. No, R56 is not capable of even hitting a wooden cutting board and not deforming at 24* inclusive. If you meant 24* per side, then yes, that is within the general ballpark. It really depends on what you are doing with the knife and how careful you are with it.
 
I know the steel on Victornix knives is quite soft . As I've changed the profile just by sharpening it in one years time . DM
 
I have always thought that the steel was pretty tough. Whenever I reprofile a Victorinox blade, seems like it takes a good while and is very abrasion resistant.
 
I just finished up two Victorinox Cooks knives.
A long time ago they used to have 12" and 14" blades and nice Rosewood handles.
The steel in these is far from hard, but its not soft either.
I dropped the edge to around 7° per side, put on a microbevel.
Chopped through a 1"x2" piece of lumber several times with no deformation or noticable edge loss.

12° per side should hold up very well. I have cleavers lower than that.
 
I've been surprised at how acute an edge a 'soft' kitchen blade can take. I've mentioned this in other threads, but I've got an 'imported' Chicago Cutlery 6" utility knife, purchased at Walmart for about $7, that I reprofiled using a GATCO sharpener at the lowest angle setting (it's marked at '15', but I think my finished bevel was lower than that). The blade took a tree-topping edge that's held up quite well under what I'd call 'typical' kitchen use (slicing/chopping veggies, tomatos, sandwich cutter, etc.). And the best thing is, when I do touch it up, the wide-bevelled edge is VERY easy to strop back to wicked sharp. I wouldn't worry at all about taking a 'good' knife, like a Victorinox, down to 12 degrees (or even less) per side. As long as you're not abusing it, I think it'd do just fine.

I've tried this with a couple other 'cheap' (soft) kitchen knives, and am seeing similar results. The one knife that didn't respond similarly wouldn't take a sharp edge to begin with. The 'steel' in that one just sort of 'crumbles away' at the edge when honing. I'm assuming a bad (horrible) heat treat for that one.
 
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